“There are the haves and the have-nots.”
“The rich get richer while the poor get poorer.”
These are a few of the sayings I heard from my parents growing up in a small rural farming community. Expressions my working class parents who never finished grade school used to help themselves understand and accept their positions.
My father spent most of his working life as a share cropper and then as an hourly factory worker. My mother worked as a hotel maid and then as a second-shift care taker in a home for elderly individuals with disabilities. She wore shoes held together with tape.
I learned early in life the American ideal that those who work hard get rewarded was a lie. Actually those who work hardest really end up with less.
I turned 15 in 1968 when the Kerner Commission’s Report on Civil Disorders was released and when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. penned the Economic Bill of Rights and began planning for the “Poor Peoples’ March on Washington.” It was also the year I learned that the poverty of my family was not near as bad as that of millions of Americans whose skin was black, or brown.
In 1968 it was outlined for us what was needed to heal our divided society. The same steps apply today. Keep this in mind when you vote.
I am Dan Kenney and that is my perspective.
